Tag: for the soul

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a person who jumps in. Puts my hand up, even when it may not be wanted. Or simply reaches out to help. I don’t know where this has come from – whether I’m overly confident or due to my upbringing of my Mum always telling me I can do anything.

There has been a new buzzword thrown around in recent months (actually, years, I’m just behind): Hygge (pronounced heu-gah). The art of building a sanctuary of happiness and wellbeing. We are in a fast paced world where we can often forget to stop and “smell the roses”, but this Danish concept of taking genuine pleasure in relaxing and being cosy, in my opinion, could never go too far. You can find and create this in your everyday; whether its lighting a candle as you curl up on the sofa to read your new book, a glass of mulled wine in front of the fire, relaxing in your favourite armchair listening to your treasured music collection. These are all brilliant examples of creating yourself a warm atmosphere and taking time to breathe and be in the moment.

In a bid to gain a few more “culture cells” in my body, on the weekend the man and I went to check out a pop up art gallery just down the road from us in Greenwich village. In the last year or so I have gained an interest in art, and the collecting of pieces. Whether they be paintings, prints or sculptures I’m keen to get on board with collecting pieces that make me happy.

We checked out the Fine Art Gallery housing oil paintings by the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. We were especially interested as all of the paintings featured landscapes and scenes from around Greenwich – where we live and first met. We’ve always said we’d love to buy a painting/print to take to New Zealand one day that encompasses where we found each other and lived in London. Triple cheese, I know.

While I enjoyed a lot of the paintings, sadly I didn’t love any. I’m a firm believer in falling in love with a piece of artwork, no matter the price, as you’re likely going to have to look at the damn thing every day – much the same as picking a partner. If on first sight one thing really annoys you about the painting (or your partner), it never going to improve! It’s always going to be that lemon in an open cut or tiny stone in your shoe that pisses you off. We will keep hunting, we’re only new at this, so really should see as many pieces as possible before plunging our house deposit into an art collection (my other half is far too sensible and would never let me do this).